Korea claims that the Korean Peninsula has been modernized even without the Japanese rule: Korea does not know the prerequisites for modernization

Photo by Unknown (licensed under CC0 1.0)

Koreans say they developed without Japanese rule.

There was a YouTube video by a pro-Japanese Korean who showed South Korean youth photos of the country before and after the Japanese occupation, showing the state of development at that time. The performers were all surprised and said it was the first time they had seen it, and they were also surprised to hear that the population had doubled and lifespans had doubled.

However, they all said that although it is clear that the country developed during the Japanese colonial era, it is still true that Japan invaded. He was unable to explain the counterargument that the Korean Peninsula would have developed even without Japan.

Everything is in one picture.

The photo of a unicycle ridden by yangban (Korean aristocrats) is interestingly introduced as a photo of the time before development, but as I have posted in the past, this one photo explains everything about this answer. . At that time, there was no technology to make wheels on the Korean Peninsula. And four slaves are supporting a unicycle.

Gear required for industrial machine.

Modernization was triggered by the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution was a revolution in power, and the steam engine was a mechanism and machine that transferred large amounts of energy to gears and converted it into another repetitive motion. If you can't make wheels, it's impossible to make any industrial machinery. However, this is a technical matter, and even if one were able to learn how to make one and create one, it would be impossible to modernize it.

the working class that underpins modern society.

A necessary condition for the industrial revolution is that a mobile labor force, the proletariat, must exist in society. Production becomes possible only when the labor force is replenished in industries that can develop. In the society of the time, where slaves were slaves to the yangban, this would have been impossible. These are things that always come up when explaining the industrial revolution.

The Korean Peninsula does not know the premise of modernization.

The Meiji Restoration abolished the shogunate system and liberated citizens from the land, creating a mobile labor force. It was Kim Ok-gyun who tried to achieve these goals on the Korean peninsula, but the Gashin Coup failed and Kim Ok-gyun defected to Japan, but was assassinated in Shanghai. Unless the class system can be abolished from within the Korean peninsula, modernization will never be possible.